passage of forest
by rcngshdws
Summary: Ochako made new friend and grew up with him along the way. Hotarubi no Mori e AU.


It was still bright; the sun was still shining. Ochako was crying; merely a child at the age of eleven, there she was, alone in the forest. She was _so_ sure this path was the right way to bring her closer to her father. But, what did she know anyway? She was still crying, sobbing loudly as it filled the forest, replacing the cricket sounds.

"Shut up!" Someone shouted from above. It sounded like a boy, and she did, stop crying, at least. She frowned and looked up at the big trees around her. There, the shout came from someone sleeping on the big trunk. Wait—

"What?!" He barked, sitting up, looking down at Ochako. (Or so it _seemed_. She couldn't tell from the mask.) "The heck are you lookin' at?!"

So Ochako asked him the first thing crossed her mind. "Why… are you wearing _kitsune_ mask?"

—

"So," Ochako started when the boy led her out of the forest. "What is your name?"

The boy only sighed loudly, shoulders lump, clearly irritated that his nap was disturbed by her cry. He walked in front of her, and the only thing between them was a branch he found. He was so mad when he found that Ochako was so easy to distract.

(It wasn't her fault, really, because _everything_ fascinated an eight years old child.)

So he insisted she held the end of the branch, while he held the other, just to make sure she wouldn't get lost again.

(Sometimes, Ochako would remember this very clearly, she could even hear the crickets around them, she could smell the fresh air in the forest, and she could feel the branch on her palm; rough and bumpy.)

"Bakugou," he answered. "Bakugou Katsuki."

"Then… can I call you Katsuki-kun?"

"Who the heck said you can call me _that_?!"

"Katsuki-kun!" claimed Ochako, delighted she found a new friend. "You can call me Ochako! Or, Ochako-chan!"

"I said _who the heck let you call me that_?!"

"You know, Katsuki-kun, it's not good that you talk bad like that."

" _Hah_?!"

—

When they reached the gate of the temple, Ochako ran; giggling and waving her arms flailingly, ignoring Katsuki's "Oi! Oi!"

And of course, she fell on her face. Katsuki ran to her, and she looked up, seeing his hand had already reached out to her, but he hesitated. She smiled. "I'm okay, Katsuki-kun!"

He put his hand down. "Brat." He muttered under his breath, before crouching down in front of her. "Don't come here again, you understand? _Don't_. It's dangerous."

Just like that, he stood up, and left. Ochako stared at the place where she last saw him, before he disappeared behind the trees.

And just like any other children at her age, she didn't do what she was told.

—

Then, she got scolded because of it.

"The heck did I tell you not to come here again, brat?!" said Katsuki from the tree. "Go home!"

Ochako looked at her surroundings: tree, tree, and another tree. Where did she come from? She looked up at him and replied, "I don't know how to go home."

She heard a _tch_ under the mask, and, "I don't care." as Katsuki moved to lie on his back and sleep.

"I will cry."

He groaned. "Fine, fine. But don't come here again, alright?" He sat up, legs dangling, ready to jump down.

She shook his head. "I want to play with you."

"You _what_."

"I'm bored. There's nothing much to do here. And you sleep all day! You must be bored too!"

"I am not."

She pouted. "Play with me."

"No."

"I will cry."

And he groaned, again, as he jumped down. "Fine." He added, "But don't touch me."

"Why?"

"If you do that," he said. "I will disappear."

—

There wasn't nothing much they could do, because Katsuki was not so easy to convince, unless provoked. (This, was something she later learned in a few days, how it was so _easy_ to tell Katsuki he couldn't do it, only to be proved she was wrong. But, oh, wasn't it her excuse to get him play?)

Later, after so many chase and run games, they were exhausted. Ochako whined about unable to get up and walk, her legs hurt, and she felt like throwing up.

"Carry me, Katsuki-kun!"

"Never," he replied without missing a beat, looking ahead of them. "There's river near here. We can rest there."

She crossed her arms on her chest and pouted, even though it had no effect on him. "I don't want to walk!"

"I'll leave you."

"I'll cry!"

"Go ahead," said Katsuki as he did, leave Ochako behind. She stared at him, waiting for him to stop and turn around, maybe walk back to her and carry her on his back. He didn't, though. And it was just her all alone. She felt chills creeping up on her, as she heard some whispers and murmurs, _"Human. Human child."_ And another, _"Looks tasty."_ that made her get up and run.

"Wait! Katsuki-kun!" She ran and ran, forgetting the stiff in her legs…

… and she almost crashed to Katsuki. She wobbled, but Katsuki caught her by the clothes. She almost cried from relief. "Katsuki-kun! You stupid! Leaving me alone like that!"

There was a hint of playfulness in his voice when he answered, "They're right. You look _tasty_."

Ochako stepped back. "You… heard it?"

" _Yokai._ " He answered. "That's why you must be careful."

"Are…" she sniffed. "Are you one too, Katsuki-kun?"

Ochako remembered, when she asked that, how the sun shone right behind Katsuki, and she couldn't see him clearly. She wished she could've seen his face. She wondered what was behind the mask.

Instead, Katsuki just turned around and, "Let's go."

—

She couldn't remember anything else again other than some blurry pieces of memory: Katsuki telling her she must leave before the sun set, Katsuki yelling at her for staring at the ants, Katsuki pulling her by the back clothes, Katsuki muttering _"Stupid brat"_.

She remembered the silence that followed when she told Katsuki, on her last day, that she was going home.

—

But then she added, she'd come back again for next summer.

—

She didn't know since when did she grow curiosity toward Katsuki's face.

His hair was blond. Were his eyebrows the same color? What was the colour of his eyes?

What did Katsuki look like?

It was that one hot day, she was fourteen, in junior high school summer breaks, that she found Katsuki sleeping near the river, where she ran away to when she first heard _them_. She was wearing her uniform; she wanted to show off. Last year, Katsuki laughed when she told him she was already in junior high school.

She hovered above him; he didn't move.

 _If… if i only touched the mask, it'd be okay, right?_

She took of the mask off his face, slowly, carefully. His sleeping face looked… peaceful, there was sweat glistening on his cheeks, probably from the heat. His mouth opened slightly. There was a frown between his eyebrows. ( _I knew it,_ Ochako thought, from all those yells and shouts, there was no way Katsuki's expression was straight when he did that.)

His eyes were open.

"Ochako?" he said, sitting up. "Oh, you're here already…" his voice trailed off as he spotted his mask in her hands. "Is that—" he touched his face, then dropped his hand down and glared at her, squinting. Before he could open his mouth, she had already run away, laughing.

"Hey! Give it back!" shouted Katsuki, chasing her.

"Don't wanna!" Ochako laughed, and the voice filled the forest, as they ran through the trees, trailing the path they already knew, had memorized it. Ochako could close her eyes and be able not to run into any tree. She wouldn't be scared of getting lost again.

After, they were exhausted, but she was still laughing, as she handed him his mask. "Katsuki-kun looks better without the mask."

Her reply was only a grunt, as he put it back on.

"Why do you have to wear it?"

There was a moment of silence before he answered, "To remind you that we are different."

—

(She remembered that was the time when she finally knew the color of his eyes: red. It was red.)

—

She brought her high school uniform, to prove that she was, indeed, a fifteen-turning-sixteen years old that was in high school.

Katsuki said nothing when he saw her in it.

"Well?" she prompted.

"Well what?" He asked.

"Hmph. Katsuki-kun doesn't know how to praise girls."

Katsuki only scoffed.

—

One day, before the summer break, her friends were talking about _crushes_.

"Don't you all feel it?" exclaimed Mina. "That feeling when you see him and he sees you back!"

"Uh…" Almost everyone around her voiced some non-coherent mutters, unable to reply. Except Ochako.

She thought about Katsuki; of his sleeping face and his angry face when he tried to chase her and his voice and… somehow. Last year. Ochako was a few steps behind him. She stared at his back and her gaze lowered down to his hand. She was about to reach it, to take it, just so she could keep up with him…

But she snapped out of it.

She didn't take it.

"What about you, Ochako-chan?" Tsuyu asked. "Do you have any love story?"

She blinked; everyone was staring at her now, with wonder and curiosity in their eyes, as they might've seen her thinking of Katsuki.

"Eh…" she ruffled her hand through her hair and laughed. "I don't have anything to tell. Sorry."

"Really?" Tooru said. "You always look like you're thinking of something. Someone, I guess."

"Yeah! And you always turn down our plans to go out in the summer break!"

"Are you secretly dating someone?"

"Is he your secret boyfriend?"

 _B-boyfriend…?_

—

The days went longer and shorter. Every time Ochako went to the forest and spotted him already waiting for her, something inside of her ached. She remembered Katsuki's face. She imagined him making a face at her when she was being—to quote what he said—annoying.

But.

She also wanted to touch him.

She wanted them to walk, side by side, hand in hand.

She let herself walk a few steps ahead of him because if she walked beside, or behind him, she would want to grab his hand, and never let go.

It was no good.

" _If you do that, I will disappear."_

—

The walk to the gate was slow, as they took their time. A few days left until Ochako had to come home again. And then, next year, next summer. She didn't want to wait for a whole year. She wanted to take a walk in the forest, stepping on dead leaves and hearing the crunch noises she made. She wanted to see if the river was frozen, and could they walk on the ice. She wanted to smell the scent of spring through the trees.

She wanted to do, to feel that with Katsuki.

Katsuki could tell her, though. But she wanted to experience it all.

They stopped just in front of the gate.

"Can I—"

"Do you want to go to the festival with me?"

She blinked. "What festival?"

Katsuki avoided her gaze. "It's spirits festival. Sometimes, there are humans joining us. You would be safe."

 _Safe_.

"I…" she mumbled. "I'd like to."

"Good. It's tomorrow, I'll see you here at 7."

"Sounds great."

"What was it you wanted to say?"

"Huh?"

"You said, 'Can I'."

"Oh. That." She laughed a little. "Nevermind."

—

To her surprise, the festival wasn't crowded. Yet it wasn't quiet either. Katsuki gave her another mask, and she put the pieces together. Humans and spirits couldn't be distinguished. There were humans wearing it, and the spirits didn't need the mask and could wander away freely.

They didn't hold hand, though.

Katsuki's right wrist was tied with a cloth, the other end was tied around Ochako's wrist.

"What do you want to do?" She asked Katsuki, who looked back at her.

"What do _you_ want to do?"

—

Ochako was laughing.

Katsuki tried to scoop down some fish but failed. And then his hand just waved failingly, and made the fishes scared. And his shout, " _DIIIIIIEEEEE!"_ was not helping at all.

"Would you just stop fuckin' laughin' already?!" Katsuki yelled, and Ochako was laughing even more because she _swore_ she could see some steams coming under the mask.

"I'm sorry! It's just—"

Katsuki took off his mask and placed it on her face. When he whispered to her, his voice sounded… so close. "What? What is it?"

Then, she heard him stepping back. The mask almost fell of, and she caught it, putting it back properly on her face. She could only hope that when the mask dropped, he didn't see her face getting red.

—

She had spent… seven summers with Katsuki. There were many good memories, bad ones also there, too. Happy ones, sad ones (mostly this was because Katsuki was pissed at her and she ended up crying, but this happened when she was younger). All the memories, especially the ones in the first few summers, were blur.

But that festival, that night, was something she could not forget.

She still remembered it clearly: a few hours before the festival, it was raining. But when the night fell, it was bright: no clouds, the moon was up, big and shining. Fireflies flying around them. They walked and Ochako got to see Katsuki's face again; it still looked almost the same as she first and last saw it. She wanted to touch his cheek. Would it be warm? Or even cold? Maybe it was because her hand was cold.

But she didn't, and she let her hands fall.

She didn't realize they were walking toward the river; a few people were there. Katsuki led them to the side where there was no other people. He stopped. He didn't say anything else, just staring at the river. Ochako still gazed at him.

"I don't know what I am," he admitted. She waited, and he continued, "But I am not human. And I've been living here for as long as I can remember." He finally turned to her. "Others have warned me not to get close to you, because it's dangerous."

"But you're here."

"Yeah," he muttered. "Ochako, I—"

She had so many regrets, so many _if-onlys._ She regretted she didn't see the child coming. She regretted she didn't grab them, instead of him.

Most of all, she regretted he didn't continue what he was going to say.

There was a child running, passing them, but the child slipped, and almost fell. Katsuki grabbed the child by their clothes, but their hands waved, and he got their hand instead. Ochako gasped; the child was human. Katsuki also stopped. The child stood straight up, said thanks, and then ran away.

As if the child didn't know Katsuki was going—Katsuki—

Ochako looked as Katsuki's feet had turned into dust, carried by the wind.

And, Katsuki _laughed_.

"Come here, Ochako," he said, raising his arms, and Ochako stepped forward to fall into those arms, as they caught her. She buried her face on his neck. Katsuki felt warm, and smelled like the forest. She tried not to cry, but it was hard with the lump in her throat.

"Don't cry," Katsuki said. "Don't cry, okay? I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you always come to me every summer. I'm happy, Ochako. Don't cry."

It was no use: she had already started crying. He pulled her, briefly, as he dried her tears. "Smile for me," he said. And she tried. As best as she could, ignoring the rest of him was disappearing, diverting her gaze to his body that was turning into dust.

She smiled, and Katsuki smiled, pressing their foreheads together.

"Katsuki," she said. "I like you. I like you. I like you. I like you."

"I like you too, Ochako."

Then he disappeared, completely, in Ochako's grasp was only his clothes. She fell down, bringing the clothes to her, smelling it, trying to remember what it felt like when Katsuki's arms had wrapped around her, trying to hear it again when Katsuki had said her name in her ear.

 _I like you too, Ochako._

—

It was not easy, at first.

She refused to go outside of the house. She didn't want to go to the temple again. She didn't want to see the forest.

When it was time to leave, she left.

Without looking back.

—

Everyone around her was worried.

"Did something happen in the summer break?"

"You know you can always talk to me, right?"

"Ochako-chan, why are you crying?"

It wasn't like she couldn't tell them. Maybe they'd understand, somehow. But she could _not_ talk about it without crying.

She never counted again how many days left until summer.

—

The next summer, she agreed to go with her friends.

"No mountains," she said.

—

It took time. But after years, many years later, she finally looked back and reminisce all her memories with Katsuki. Some of them were blurry, some of them were clear as days. Yet she cherished them all. She kept his mask and clothes somewhere in a box, that she opened sometimes to remind herself that those seven summers were real.

She stood in front of the gate. Ochako, merely a woman at the age of twenty-three, stared at the forest. The wind blew, as if to welcome her back.

She stepped forward.


End file.
